Friday, July 11, 2014

An overview of Dinosaur Exhibits part 5: The Royal Ontario Museum

I have held off talking about this museum for a while now,
as it has been nearly 15 years since I’ve been there last, and not only have I
forgotten a great deal of it but also it has undergone extensive renovation in
2008.Canada,
like the USA, is rich in
dinosaur fossil material, and sort of acts like Mongolia
to China
in terms of fossils-the hotbed of Cretaceous rock. British Colombia brought us
the Cambrian explosion in the Burgess Shale, but for dinosaurs, Alberta and Saskatchewan
are the real treasure trove. There’s really nothing like them outside of Montana and Wyoming to
the south and Mongolia
across the Pacific. Lambe, Brown, and the Sternbergs found a gold mine of
Cretaceous fossils, one that is still being excavated today.

Like the southern American West, while a lot of fossils are
stored and studied nearby (in this case, the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller
near Edmonton),
a great deal have made it to the East. While the US
fossils were shipped to Chicago, Pittsburg, Washington, New Haven, Philadelphia and
Washington DC,the Canadian fossils were sent to Toronto and Ottawa.
The National Canadian
Museum of Nature will be covered next
in the series, but today we’re looking at the Royal Ontario
Museum.

The museum is an amazing colossus, with a futuristic,
geometric crystal built around a neo-gothic core.There are no less than 3 full levels, and it
will take two days to see the whole thing. I spent 6 hours alone and wound up
skipping a few of the less interesting exhibits. It’s second only to the American Museum
in New York
in terms of sheer size and scope. Archaeology, history, anthropology,
paleontology, art and ecology share the spaces, from 20th century Canada back to the Triassic, from the First
Nations of British Colombia to Edo Japan
to Old Kingdom Egypt
to the Golden Age of France.

Fortunately, I chose to make a paleontology blog instead of
history or anthropology (for now), so I’ll focus on the two galleries on the
second floor.

On the main floor there is a mount, however, much like the
American’s Barosaurus or Field’s Tyrannosaurus. In this case, it’s of the giant
Cretaceous titanosaur Futalongkosaurus. The holotype is an incomplete specimen
in the Museo Ernesto Bachmann in El Chocon, Argentina,
so this is a cast, using other titanosaur bones to reconstruct it. In a unique
touch, all the fossils here are identified as cast, fossil, or composite,
showing which are which by the display card.

The sauropod dominates the Hyacinth Gloria Chen Court
and can be seen from the ticket booths, but it’s not the only
dinosaur. Behind it is the Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery, linking the
exhibits on the main floor. There, two more full mounts are on display,
articulated but still “in situ” context,of Sternberg’s Prosaurolophus and Edmontosaurus. They’re impressive but
they are only appetizers, tempting visitors with promises of more.

On the second floor, the best way of reaching the fossils is
the Stair of Wonders to the Southwest. On the way, you should appreciate the
mounts of tropical birds, modern dinosaurs.Coming in from the stairwell, be sure to look left. You’ll be looking
straight at the giant beak of a mount of Quetzalcoatlus. While Austin
and Pittsburg
also have spectacular Quetzalcoatlus mounts, this one is the most impressive;
it flies in from the main court, peering in at the visitors menacingly.

The way to view this gallery is a clockwise circle. First,
you should start with the gallery of icthyosaurs, two dimensional but still
spectacular, including a giant Eurhinosaurus and a pregnant Stenopterygius.Going
forward, you’ll encounter two classic Jurassic American dinosaurs-Allosaurus
and Stegosaurus. Instead of being locked in combat as in Denver
or in separate galleries like New
York, they are side by side, more concerned with the
visitors than each other. Behind them is the showcase of the
gallery-Barosaurus. It’s the only such mount outside New York. However, unlike the dynamic battle
against Allosaurus, this one is browsing, right next to a Camptosaurus and
Compsognathus.

Cretaceous begins with Parksosaurus
nearby, and leading to a truly impressive display of hadrosaurs. While a
Euoplocephalus skull and mace are nearby and a Geosternbergia flies overhead,
it’s these hadrosaurs that make up the next showcase. Parasaurolophus, Lambeosaurus,
Corythosaurus, Maiasaura(and infants)
and Gryposaurusare in their full
splendour, their sheer size and unique shapes looming over skulls of
Corythosaurus, Lambeosaurus (and their juvenile and subadult stages) and
Edmontosaurus.Returning back to the
entrance are the late Cretaceous theropods of America: Full mounts of
Ornithomimus, Anzu (just named this year), Gorgosaurus, and Deinonychus

The next gallery can be found by the
“flying” mount of Archelon. Indeed, it’s a good transition-it continues the
Cretaceous, and the next fossils are all from the great Niobrara seaway
stretching from Veracruz though Eastern Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and into
Manitoba, Western Ontario, and Eastern Saskatchewan. Archelon is joined by
other flying mounts of Platecarpus, Xiphactinus, and Trinacromerum¸and a two dimensional
Hydrotherosaurus. Below them are skulls of Tylosaurus and Platecarpus (the last
with an ammonite in its mouth, a specimen with mosasaur toothmarks and
punctures in its shell)

Finally, there are
the Ceratopsians and the last theropods. Small display cases describe the ROM’s
discovery of the pachycephalosaur Acrotholus and dromeosaur Acheroraptor. The
horned dinosaurs, contemporaries of Gorgosaurus and the last space’s
hadrosaurs, are represented by skulls of Arrhinoceratops, Anchiceratops, Centrosaurus
and full mounts of Protceratops andChasmosaurus. Another case has the domes of Stegoceras,
Pachycephalosaurus, Stygimoloch, and Colepiocephale.Behind them is a Pachycephalosaurus mount and
a wall display of birdlike dinosaurs, replicas of the Liaoning feathered dinosaurs, a mounted cast
of Bambiraptor and a very inaccurate model of Microcraptor and a realistic
model of . Of course, the real stars of the display are the centerpiece. A
mounted cast of Tyrannosaurus looms over the other dinosaurs, while replica
skulls of Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and Nanotyrannus

The transition to
mammals is abrupt-you can just turn around from Tyrannosaurus to Hyracotherium.
A Teleoceras is elevated over the Palaeogene gallery-including skulls of
Barylambda, Hemipsalodon, Megacerops (several specimens), Uintatherium, early
equids, full mounts of Dinictis, Menoceras,
and Hyaenodon,. The highlights are the mount of the bizarre amphibious mammal
Desmostylus and the three Menoceras in different poses, a piece of their
legendary bonebed below them.

The second mammal display is my personal favorite, South American
mammals. Skulls of the killer bird Phorusrhacus and the mammals Interatherium,
Adinotherium, Haplomastodon Thylacosmilus, Borhyaena and others are
overshadowed by the mounts. The greatest of the mounts is the giant Laurillard's ground sloth (the sheer size of
this animal, found only in the Gulf of Mexico, is probably why it’s here
instead of the only ground sloth found in Canada, the smaller Jefferson’s
Ground Sloth),dwarfing the
Macrauchenia, Toxodon, Glyptodon, Holmesina, northern sabertooth, dire wolf,
and western horse.

True Canadian mammals make up the last mammal section, focused around
the American Mastodon. Stag-Moose, Irish Elk (its European equivalent), giant
beaver, Hagerman horse (an older, more primitive species of horse), and giant
short-faced bear form up behind it. The best part of this display, however, is
the display on Bergmann’s rule. Skulls of modern animals-alligator, African
lion, and plains bison are compared with their Pleistocene equivalents-giant
alligator (same species), American lion, and steppe bison.

Lastly, there is another gallery behind the mammals; a special exhibit.
It’s focused on the Upper Elliot formation, specifically the dinosaur
Massospondylus. Massospondylus is not only represented by a mount, but also
fossil skulls of adult, juvenile, and hatchlings, as well as a nest. Its
predator Dracovenator is also present, with its snout being compared to the
replica of the full skeleton of Dilophosaurus hung on the wall.

The exhibits’ arrangement is middling, as are the mounts poses. There
is a sense of linear time, albeit somewhat distorted by the clockwise manner of
the first room and the abrupt transition to the Cenozoic. There are no murals
or art, showing the specimens in clinical detail. They’re well-lit by the
fluorescent skylights and giant windows, allowing for detailed viewing of the
specimens. Like the rest of the museum, the dinosaurs are placed not in
atmospheric senses, but clinical like the American museum. Thankfully, it
avoids the American museum’s mistake of arranging the animals
taxonomically.While Gorgosaurus and
Eurhinosaurus share a room and Anatosaurus is alongside Corythosaurus and
Barosaurus while Chasmosaurus is by Tytannosaurus, at least Apatosaurus isn’t
across from Tyrannosaurus. I would have come up with a better arrangement, and
the clockwise arrangement of the first room’s fossils could have been more
explicit so that people don’t get the idea that Quetzalcoatlus and Gorgosaurus
were contemporaries of icthyosaurs, but it’s satisfactory.

I, however, recommend this exhibit
and the museum. Like the American, it’s huge and complex and exhausting, and it
can’t all be seen in a day, but it’s also amazing. Yeah, some displays are
disorganized or could be presented better, but the sheer amount of great
specimens is overwhelming. The American
museum, the pinnacle of natural history museums in the USA, is the
only museum I can remember being greater than the Royal Ontario museum. I
recommend it wholeheartedly. While the Canadian Museum
of Nature is excellent (more on that one later) and the Royal Tyrell is a holy
grail for me, the Royal Ontario is the greatest museum this side of the
Alleghenies.Go see it! The paleontology
gallery is described on the museum’s website here, complete with virtual tour http://www.rom.on.ca/en/exhibitions-galleries/galleries/natural-history/james-and-louise-temerty-galleries-age-dinosaurs

About Me

Hi everyone! You may know me already, but 99% of you won't. I've decided to make a blog for myself. I'm a anthropology student who has returned to his original passion for palaeontology. Ever since I was little, I've been fascinated with the weird and wonderful animals that have inhabited our planet and I've made this blog to keep this in my mind and hopefully in yours. Most people blog about their interests, and while I've got a range of interests-see history and anthropology above, not to mention zoology, astronomy, art, cooking, science fiction and fantasy films and literature, and a myriad of others, the one I want to do for a living is the study of Earth's ancient past.

On this blog I'll review papers, talk about fossils, museums, and taxa, review art, film, literature, and our culture's view of paleontology, and share memories and insights. I've been inspired by the far better blogs of professional palaeontologists, and I'll share them as time goes on. I'm also open to requests and questions of opinions, the latest palaeo news, and discussions with other fans informal and professional.

I think this is going to have fun, and I'm hoping my readers will have just as much fun.

Copyright: All media and print reviewed belongs to the owners and publishers. Likewise, all art used for this blog belongs to their artists. This is a non-profit blog for education and entertainment.